A Repossession, 2 Lbs. Of Weed And A Chase

Kenner police arrested a man Tuesday after a high-speed chase that ended with a flipped SUV in New Orleans.

Thomas Elliot White Jr., 27, was arrested and booked on multiple felony counts, including drug possession, following the incident.

Lt. Brian McGregor, a Kenner Police Department spokesman, said the incident began Tuesday morning at 27th Street in Kenner as a routine narcotics investigation.

Kenner officers had been contacted by a repossession company that found between one and two pounds of marijuana inside the Ford SUV that ended up crashing, McGregor said.

White had been late on his payments and had made a deposit to the bank to get his vehicle back, McGregor said. Once the repossession company learned White would be retrieving the SUV, employees called Kenner police.

After learning that someone was en route to pick up the vehicle, “along likely with the drugs,” McGregor said, a police officer was waiting nearby as the person tried to take custody of the vehicle and the drugs.

Police officers then tried to stop White from leaving in the SUV, but he fled and officers began a pursuit at a “high rate of speed” into New Orleans, McGregor said.

White drove down Veterans Boulevard until he got on Interstate 10, McGregor said. From there, officers followed him until he got off at Tulane Avenue and ended up at South Jefferson Davis Parkway and Martin Luther King Boulevard, where he crashed.

Officers also later recovered what they said was a duffel bag full of marijuana that White had thrown out of the SUV on Veterans Boulevard.